The Colonels defeated the host Grizzlies, 67-56, to bounce back from Friday night's loss to Chattahoochee in the Region 7-AAAA semifinals.
"We played a pretty good defensive game," Cass coach Greg Scott said. "We shot the ball a lot better than we did last night against Chattahoochee."
The Colonels were up 15-13 after the first quarter and took a 31-29 lead into halftime. Cass found itself ahead 45-41 by the start of the fourth and closed out Creekview by hitting key free throws.
"We hit 11 out of 14 free throws in the fourth quarter, which was very, very big," Scott said. The Colonels, he added, also had balanced scoring throughout the game.
Jozelle Payne scored 18 points to lead Cass, Tarris Batiste added 14 and Tony Mitchell finished with 12. Batiste was named to the 7-AAAA All-Region Second Team for his play during the season, Scott said.
Other scorers for the Colonels included Sam Taylor, 9; Trey Walker, 6; and Jay Stephens and Kaleb Reed, 4 each.
"I was surprised that our legs were as good as what they were tonight after the effort we had to give last night against Chattahoochee," the Cass coach said in reference to his team's 48-47 loss. "Our guys gutted it out and willed ourselves to win again."
As the No. 3 seed, the Colonels will have to travel for their first-round game Saturday night, which will likely be against Chapel Hill in Douglasville, Scott said.
Despite having to hit the road, he feels good about his team's chances, after it went 20-8 during the regular season and through the region tournament.
"I think we have a really good chance to win," Scott said. "Nineteen out of our 28 games have been on the road this year. I feel like we're road tested. With our schedule, we're battle tested."
Chattahoochee 48, Colonels 47
Cass missed shots from close up, as in layups, and from a distance, as in the 3-pointers that are such crowd-pleasers in high school basketball, last Friday night.
As a result, Chattahoochee found a way, once again, to slip by Cass in the region boys basketball tournament being played near Canton.
The result was a 48-47 victory that left the Colonels making plans to go on the road when they start their pursuit of a state title next Friday night.
"We gave a tremendous effort," Scott said. "We were much looser than against Rome [but] we missed way too many layups, too many inside shots. We probably didn't make three or four shots outside the paint."
He said the missed layups were in particular damaging. "We had seven or eight missed by just different people. Even with that we had 21 field goals to their 19. They sank six 3's and we were 5 of 10 at the free throw line and they were four of seven."
Scott said Cass came close to overcoming its cold shooting.
The two teams were tied at 45-all when Jaron Blossomgame sank a 3-pointer with 1:36 left, letting Chattahoochee surge into the lead.
Stephens responded with a basket quickly and the two teams were at 48-47.
Cass missed on four opportunities and finally was down to two seconds and got off a shot from the corner that didn't answer the collective wish that went out on behalf of the Colonels.
"We got a pretty good shot off then," Scott said, "but we couldn't get it to fall."
He said the bright spot for Cass was the defensive effort that put the clamps on Chattahoochee.
"We executed our game plan almost to the letter except for missing so many shots," he said.
Scoring for Cass were Taylor, 2; Batiste, 6; Stephens, 12; Payne, 9; Reed, 2; and Walker, 16.
Scoring for Chattahoochee were Blossomgame, 20; Markus Terry, 11; Jacob Bartlett, 23; Nadale Fowlks, 5; Rashon Dumas, 2; and Jamie Frost, 8.